Avery Singer | Hauser & Wirth London
Climate Impact Report
Avery Singer 'Free fall'
HAUSER & WIRTH London
10 OCT – 22 Dec 2023Introduction
The exhibition was based entirely upon Singer’s childhood memories of the 9/11 attacks. Now in her thirties, she continues to process and examine her childhood memories of a global tragedy that most of the world only experienced and recalls primarily as a surreal event broadcasted on television and propagated via print media. In planning the exhibition, our gallery team discussed ways to incorporate sustainable approaches to exhibition making. This was the first climate impact study our London gallery team embarked on, and they were led by the artist and her team on the development of the show.
Exhibition Overview
In this exhibition, Singer constructed a world based upon her memories growing up in New York City and introduced layered evocations of some of the people who were present on one of the most fateful days in modern history.
In the decades since 9/11, technology has evolved and accelerated exponentially. We have come to live in a world where tragedies are routinely livestreamed instantaneously by witnesses and victims, experienced intimately on a mass scale by the rest of us. Such real-time documentation and distribution have significantly impacted the ways in which our memories function and, in turn, how we relate to each other.
Architectural intervention in the exhibition space
The narrative of the show was the framework through which the architecture was constructed. The content of the show was very personal, but the architectural surroundings were impersonal. Singer wanted to create an immersive environment that acted beyond a blank canvas for her work. Specifically, she was interested in recreating the atmospheric banalities of the corporate world.
Corporate environments routinely serve as backdrops to our contemporary living – going to work, to the bank, the doctor, etc. A multitude of our everyday experiences happen in these corporate spaces. Singer also grew up in the Financial District, where these types of rather sterile spaces were commonplace and ubiquitous. In this exhibition, Singer explored the idea that we live and die in these corporate environments.
The works and architectural intervention in ‘Free Fall’ served as a testament to the power of memory, while also functioning as a memorial to an infamous moment of terror and survival.
Examples of specific design/architectural features designed by Singer include:
Elevator banks at the entrance of the North Gallery were first things the visitor was confronted with when entering the space. Singer wanted the appearance and atmosphere of the exhibition to deviate from typical painting exhibitions. She wanted to evoke the uncanny and the unexpected to purposefully disorient visitors.
Paint colours of the walls were chosen to replicate the general ‘beige’ and ‘grey’ tones that we associate with corporate spaces. Bankers Grey was the colour of the theatrical curtains, and the colour palette of the walls included relatively muted shades of khaki, mushroom, etc.
A corridor must be passed through before visitors could access the space, echoing the many long, seemingly never-ending corridors that Singer recalled specifically in the perspective of a child.
Corporate-looking carpets covered the floors of the exhibition space, and typical office furniture and tile ceiling lights that you would find in a regular corporate space were arranged and installed.
Curtains wrapped around the exhibition space as if in a real office, blocking off the outside world. Additionally, theatrical green/grey velvet curtains provided as a backdrop to some of the works in the North Gallery. As result, these spaces came to resemble stage sets, which served as a nod to the time Singer had spent in movie theatres as a child. Curtains, alongside the approximation of Yamasaki’s columns, underlined the collapsing of time; we are forced to reminisce about the past while also being reminded of where we stand in the present.
Shredded paper collected from actual office shredders scattered across the floor of the North Gallery, recalling archive images of the Wall Street trading floor covered in shredded paper, as well as evoking an office space which had been thrown into disarray due to the 9/11 attack.
Singer also staged an intervention in the bookstore of the London gallery by recreating a typical ‘Borders’ bookstore, whose flagship downtown store at the World Trade Center was destroyed in the attack. The bookstore featured classic wooden bookshelves typical of a Borders bookstore with sections for each genre of title and were stocked with books from 2001 or before.
The fake hoarding installed between the two gallery spaces was an image of what one of Singer’s animations looked like when working in computer programmes to create these spaces. This can almost be related to a sketch or an ‘in process’ shot. Seen in tandem with the physical columns in the Gallery, the trompe l’oeil effect added to the disorienting effect of Singer’s architectural intervention/transformation.
Why did Singer choose to show this in London, outside of the context of New York? Why now?
Avery commented on the treatment of this traumatic event by the media on a global scale. She commented on the embedded consciousness of the event that Americans and New Yorkers experience in comparison to the perception of the international audience who consumed the event via media. What is further conveyed is the evolution of media proliferation in the past two decades; if 9/11 were to happen today, the media coverage and dissemination would be dramatically different.
This exhibition also commented beyond the in specific New York tragedy. It was a wider meditation on the impact of collective trauma and the treatment of tragic events by modern media, and consequently the way these events are consumed and memorialised.
Singer had spent some time reflecting on these memories as she prepared for this exhibition that had been in the making for quite some time. In 2014, she came across an installation by sculptor Robert Gober, which sparked the idea for the show.
Sustainability
As part of our sustainability activities, we tracked travel, materials, waste, shipping, energy consumption and event planning.
Sustainability planning in advance included:
The columns within the exhibition build were made of ECOBoard (100% recycled fibres).
Carpet tiles were reclaimed by Envirocycle who specializes in diverting carpet waste to reuse through their carpet tile reuse program.
Prop plants were moved to decorate our offices after the exhibition.
Bookshelves to be reused in our Somerset gallery or recycled by supplier.
We explored the option of sending the entire exhibition by sea. However, the container would have had to leave New York in July for the September installation, and the only works that had been completed at that time would have been too small to fill the container. This meant the entire shipment had to be sent by air to reach the exhibition in time.
This was the first exhibition where the gallery team was able to track the volume of food and beverage for the artist dinner, providing us from there onwards a benchmark to work from in shaping future approaches to gallery dinners.
During the exhibition, our Invigilators conducted a digital ‘Travel Survey’ with visitors to better understand their travel patterns. By analysing this information, we hoped to identify patterns and trends in visitors’ transportation choices to allow to develop effective strategies to reduce our carbon footprint. However, the number of surveys we were ultimately able to collect was too low to advance this quantitative study
The Climate Impact Report (CIR) for this exhibition was published on the artist-led sustainability platform Artists Commit. Launched in November 2021, the CIR concept was initiated by Artists Commit. Written in April 2024, this report marks the fourth installment in a series of CIRs published by Hauser & Wirth.
Hauser & Wirth’s Climate Policy
In line with the Paris Climate Agreement of the United Nations, we are reducing our carbon emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030. Since making our commitment, we have cut down our emissions by 20 percent and continue to drive actions to accelerate meeting our target. Reductions are happening by switching to renewable energy, transitioning to LED lighting, purchasing electric vehicles and tracking carbon emissions and waste associated with our air freight.
Commitments
• Reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 50 percent by 2030 in line with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). This includes reducing our freight, business travel and exhibition construction emissions.
• Support Strategic Climate Funds, including projects that preserve existing forests and positively impact communities backed up by climate justice initiatives.
• Actively promote and provide a platform for industry collaboration.
Energy actions in our London gallery
Since 2021 our galleries have been using renewable energy. We have switched to 100% LED lighting across our galleries, offices and storage spaces and we purchased an electric van for artwork deliveries in and around London.
Carbon Emissions
The exhibition’s carbon emissions were assessed according to Scope 1, 2 and 3 by the Carbon Accounting Company (CAC). The methodology for the exhibition emissions quantification follows the principles and methods of The GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard). The lifecycle emissions quantification of construction materials follows the principles of the ISO 14040:2006 Standard (https://www.iso.org/standard/37456.html).
All data was collected and provided by Hauser & Wirth colleagues either directly in the data collection workbook provided by CAC, or in separately consolidated communications. While it is assumed that the data entered by Hauser & Wirth was accurate and complete, minor leakages in the Scope 3 carbon category are anticipated.
Areas Calculated
Further narrative about the carbon emissions of the exhibition
SCOPE 1
Air Conditioning: 2.11 tCO2e
SCOPE 2
Grid Electricity: 15.95 tCO2e (location-based), 0 tCO2e (market-based)
SCOPE 3
Freight: 24.93 tCO2e
There was a mix of air and road freight. Air freight weighed 4,856 kg (including packaging) and road freight was 5,340 kg, distances of 17,693 and 1,596 km were travelled respectively. Air freight emissions were calculated using volumetric weight of the shipment from New York. Calculating the carbon footprint of road transport has accuracy limitations because it is not accounted for by vehicle type. The calculation includes both inbound and outbound shipments.
Employee and artist travel: 5.81 tCO2e
The only travel that’s been included in this report is the air travel, with the total distance amounting to 20,471 km
Event Food & Beverage: 0.48 tCO2e
There was 1 catered event with a total of 82 guests.
Exhibition construction: 27.26 tCO2e
Materials used in the exhibition included: 210 litres of decorative paint; 208 kg of plaster; 3,570 kg of dimensional wood; 2,300 kg of drywall; 824 kg of galvanised steel; 199 kg of aluminum; 125 kg stainless steel; 2,476 kg of carpet; 60 litres of ready mixed wallpaper adhesive and 24 kg fibre lining paper.
Total Calculated Emissions: 60.8 tCO2e (market based)
Waste Report:
Using a material afterlife checklist, we categorized the destination of material used in the exhibition.
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Waste Category |
Items |
Notes |
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Reuse: to be reused for the same purpose as the original use |
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Repurpose: to be kept, sold, or donated and used for a different purpose in the future |
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Storage: items sent to storage, but without a clear plan for immediate reuse or repurpose |
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Recycle: items placed in the recycling bin |
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Landfill: items sent to a landfill |
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Waste disposal generated 0.241 tCO2e
Collective Action:
Completing and sharing a Climate Impact Report (CIR) with Artists Commit is a collective action!
As a next step, we encourage you to invite your artists, vendors, other galleries, museums, or institutions into the conversation. Perhaps to do a report with you, or to ask them if they are interested in supporting you as you complete yours.
Have a transparent conversation within the project team about other ways that the project can support collective action within the art sector:
Share a Climate Impact Report at artistscommit.com.
Share what was learned in the Report to audiences.
Ask project partners and collaborators about their climate policies, commitments, or priorities.
Learn from what other projects have done, connect with other institutions or artists to ask for advice, acknowledge them in your report.
Reach out to other organizations or local networks doing this kind of work. Some examples from the Visual Arts PACT:
Art to Acres
Art + Climate Action (California)
Art/Switch
Galleries Commit
Gallery Climate Coalition
Ki Culture
Propose others do a CIR at the same time.
Offer to be available to advise or support other artists or presenting partners who want to do a climate impact report for the first time.
Make sure all artists you work with know that the Climate Impact Reports is an available tool.
Use the report to refine future practices.
Credits
Carbon Emissions Metrics Prepared by: Sam Clarke (Head of Art Handling), Gemma March (Senior Registrar), Liv Ranson (Gallery Manager), Anna Clarke (Associate Director Events Europe)
CIR Prepared by: Ian Lipton, Carbon Accounting Company, Cliodhna Murphy, Global Head of Environmental Sustainability, Hauser & Wirth and Barbie Liu, Gallery Assistant, Hauser & Wirth.
CIR Reviewed by: Adrienne Chau (Artist Liaison, Hauser & Wirth), Haley Mellin (Art to Acres)
Link to Project: https://www.hauserwirth.com/hauser-wirth-exhibitions/42287-avery-singer-free-fall/
All image credits: Avery Singer, Hauser & Wirth 2023. Photos by Alex Delfanne.
Thanks to Artists Commit team members Deville Cohen, Laura Lupton, and Jessica Gath.
Additional Notes/Closing Thoughts
This is a further Climate Impact Report (CIR) conducted with the support of Artists Commit and the first conducted with our gallery team in London. As a follow-up to the report, we plan to run a workshop with our local team so they understand the findings of the report and can incorporate climate conscious choices into future exhibitions. Alongside the carbon budgets that Hauser & Wirth is using for exhibitions in 2024, colleagues can use the CIR document as a base to consider the full sustainability spectrum of a specific exhibition. It is interesting to reflect on how decisions about wall build construction have an impact and what the gallery team can do to reduce waste going forward.